


Sometimes I Take the Long Way Home

by likethedirection



Category: Glee
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Kurt is a pretty solid dude, Rory needs friends, S3E6 - Mash-Off, everybody needs a hug, mentions of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1416871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethedirection/pseuds/likethedirection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Finn spies, Rory lets it out, and Kurt is a little too good at this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes I Take the Long Way Home

He found them in an empty science classroom after, still in their gym clothes, Rory sitting obediently at a desk near the back--away from the door, Finn realized, so no one could see them from the hallway--and Kurt wiping very gently around Rory’s nose and mouth, using the fingertips of his other hand to carefully tilt his chin.   Rory didn’t seem to mind as he held a wad of tissues to his nose, though he suddenly looked a lot more tired than he had before.

Kurt’s sweatband was off, his hair a little crazy, but the raw emotion from before was gone from his face.  In its place was a cool, silent mask that only appeared when Kurt was completely and utterly _furious_.

Concealed as he was between the door and the giant bookcase he sort of ran into every time he came in this classroom, they didn’t see him, and Finn considered leaving them alone, but then he noticed Rory was talking.

“--everyone here just carry first-aid kits around with them like this?” he was saying, and Kurt shook his head.

“Most don’t,” he said, his voice low and soothing like when Finn had told him about the other day, about the OSU recruiter and Rachel and doing things for maybe the wrong reasons.  “But they say that fortune favors the prepared.”

“Who says that?”

Kurt’s mouth quirked up, but it was hollow.  “Just ‘they.’”

They were quiet a bit, and Finn hovered uncertainly behind the bookcase, wondering if he should maybe leave.

“Is there something I’ve done, Kurt?” Rory asked, looking up at Kurt with a frown, like he was really really trying to understand, and for some reason that expression wrung Finn’s heart like a wet washcloth.  “Something I didn’t know about, that was offensive, or something?  Was it trying to get in Brittany Pierce’s pants, because I’d sort of gotten the impression that everyone around here--”

“It’s not that,” Kurt said, coaxing Rory’s hand away so he could check on the bleeding.  Satisfied, he plucked the tissue from him and threw it away with the wet-wipe, then turned back to his first-aid kit, and Finn tried to think of a time that kit hadn’t been poking out from his bag.  He thought back through junior year, sophomore year, freshman year.  He came up empty.  “You didn’t do anything wrong.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

He tucked the kit away, then pulled another, smaller container out of his bag, setting it on the desk while Rory frowned at the floor.  When Rory spoke again, he sounded younger than Finn had ever heard him.  “Then why’s this happening?”

“Hold still.”  Kurt held Rory’s head in place with a hand on either side of his jaw--still so light, barely touching him--and studied his face, frowning a bit at where the bridge of his nose was starting to swell.  Straightening again, he began to sift through the second container.  “It happens because this place is small,” he said softly, “and as a result, a lot of the people here can’t be bothered to be anything but small themselves.  Being different--daring to be who you are, without apologizing for it, is big.  So much bigger than anything most of those Neanderthals will ever know.   And that scares them.  So they try to make you feel as small as they are.”

“But what about San--are you putting makeup on me?”

Kurt hummed to the affirmative.  “Just concealer.  It’ll hide the bruising until you can get some proper supplies to help the swelling go down.”  With a hint of a smile, “Don’t worry, I’m not dolling you up.”

Awkwardly, after a beat, “I didn’t think that.”

“It’s fine if you did.  I’m aware that I’m preceded by a certain reputation.”  Kurt moved the pad smooth and light, slowly magicking the bruising away.  “Were you going to ask about Santana?”

“Yeah, her.  I think she really hates me.”

“She is very protective of Brittany, and I believe she is working through some difficult issues of her own,” Kurt said slowly, “but that said, most of the time there is no excuse for the things she says.  Or does.  We’ve had our moments, and she is a phenomenal performer, but lately all she’s been is unnecessarily cruel.  I swear, if I hear one more ‘fat’ joke directed at my brother, I--”

“Wait, _Finn Hudson_ is your--”

“By marriage, last year.  My dad, his mom.”  Kurt paused, lifting an eyebrow.  “Why?  Can’t you see the family resemblance?”

Rory seemed unsure whether he was serious until Kurt smiled for him--not hollow this time, but still nowhere near bright--and he let out his breath, cracking the first smile Finn had seen on him since the game.  “Well, maybe it does run in the family,” he said tentatively.  “You and Finn are the first people other than Brittany to remind me that America’s not all bad, you know?”

Kurt’s face dimmed.  “I’m truly sorry to hear that.”

Rory shrugged, trying for another smile but not doing so well this time.  “Suppose it’s my fault, really.  I should’ve known better than to think it’d be just like what I thought I knew.  Goes both ways, you know?  When I got here, Brittany spent a week thinking I was a leprechaun.”

Kurt rolled his eyes, brushing the pad gently along the bridge of Rory’s nose one more time.  “If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure she’s gone beyond metaphor and now thinks I’m an actual unicorn.”

Rory actually laughed a little at that.  “She’s gorgeous and all, but the girl’s a bit daft, isn’t she?”

“Mm.  Think it, acknowledge it, and never say it out loud.”  Kurt straightened and studied Rory’s face a moment before smiling a little.  Hollow again.  “Good as new.”

He offered Rory a compact to look for himself, and Rory’s eyebrows went up.  “Wow.  You’re good at that.”

Finn thought back to the times before he’d really known Kurt, when he’d shaken his head over the weird kid who always went in the wrong bathroom with a makeup bag, and always came out looking shiny and new.

Kurt took the compact back, took a glance at it himself, muttered something like ‘oh lord’ and started fussing pointlessly at his hair, and Rory said, “Kurt?”

“Hmm?”

“This happened to you, didn’t it?”

Kurt didn’t even glance up from the mirror.  “Among other things.”

“Like what?” Rory asked, and Finn couldn’t tell whether the twinge in his voice was innocent curiosity, dread, or both.

Kurt exhaled a laugh that was a little harsh.  “Name it.  Locker checks, slushies to the face, dumpster-tosses.  Pee-balloons.  Lawn furniture nailed to my roof.”  He seemed to give up on his hair and closed up the compact, putting it away and  moving to slip the makeup container into his bag.  “Threatening phone calls, the occasional fist--face and stomach were the favorite targets--ruined clothes, ruined costumes, ruined homework assignments.  Vandalism.  Death threats.  A brief bout of sexual harassment.”  Finn’s brain broke for a second, and he had to check himself not to charge out there that moment and demand _who_ , _when_ , and _how do I kill him?_  Kurt, meanwhile, only looked cloudy for a moment before floating back.  “And last May I was voted Prom Queen.”

Rory stared at him, his eyes huge and horrified.

Standing up again, Kurt took one look at him and smiled the way he’d smiled at the very beginning of Finn’s best-man speech last year--sweet and tired and a little sad.  “Don’t worry,” he said, and just like that his voice was soothing again, low and calm, like a thick blanket and warm milk while it storms outside.  “I promise you, Rory, I will do everything in my power to ensure that none of those things ever happen to you.”

Finally, Rory seemed to find his voice.  “Why, though?”  His expression was shifting, horror to bewilderment to something like awe.  “You don’t even know me.”

Kurt only hesitated a second before reaching out to squeeze Rory’s shoulder.  “Obviously, neither do they.”

Rory’s mouth opened, shut, opened again.  He swallowed hard.  Blinked fast.

“Thank you,” he said, thick and crackling.

Kurt rubbed Rory’s shoulder with his thumb.  “Hey,” he said gently.  “Would it be too forward for me to give you a hug?”

Rory exhaled with a weak, weak smile, and shook his head.  “No.”

Kurt stepped in and wrapped both arms around Rory’s shoulders in a hug that was a little awkward, since Rory was still sitting down, but Rory immediately curled both arms around Kurt’s middle, and a few seconds later he exhaled and inhaled really fast like a sob, and that wasn’t awkward at all.

In his head, Finn left right that second.  He snuck back toward the door, opened it silently and closed it just as silently behind him, because he wasn’t supposed to hear this, or see this, or know this.

In real life, he just sank down to the floor and sat against the bookcase, unable to make himself leave as Rory kept breathing funny and Kurt murmured a repetitive mantra of “It’ll get better,” and “We’ll take care of you,” and “I know.”

He wasn’t sure he’d ever loved his stepbrother more than he did at that moment--and he did, he really did, he _loved_ Kurt in a way no one ever quite seemed to understand--and he stayed right where he was, feeling weirdly and fiercely protective of these two guys, even if they had both already proven themselves way stronger than he was pretty sure he would ever be.

After a little while, they both went quiet, and then Rory said, muffled, “I think I ruined your makeup job.”  He sniffed.  “Ow.”

“You’ll soon learn I always have more,” Kurt said, with a tilt in his voice that sounded like maybe a smile.  “And fortunately for you, this is another area of the cosmetic arts in which I happen to be an expert.”

Finn scrubbed a hand across his face and tried not to think about what it meant for Kurt to be an expert at covering up tear-tracks.

“Sorry about that,” Rory said, a little meek, and Kurt clucked at him.  “You think I would wear this T-shirt for _dodgeball_ if I actually cared what happened to it?”  There was some shuffling, Kurt’s bag un-snapping again.  “No apologizing.  Now chin up, let me work.”

“Maybe you can show me how to do this sometime.  So you won’t have to.”

A beat.  Then, quietly, “No.  I don’t think so.”

Finn closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the bookcase and listened while they kept talking, Kurt quickly shifting to the topic of zombie makeup, and then KISS covers, and then teaching Puck how to walk in six-inch platform boots, and it was only when Rory was laughing helplessly at that image, Kurt chuckling as he described it, that Finn was finally able to get to his feet, waver for a moment between going to them and going for the door, and finally settle on the latter.

He didn’t leave--that would be dumb, considering Kurt was his ride--but just went to the empty locker room, where Kurt would expect him to be.  After getting his things together, he lay down flat on one of the benches with his feet on the ground, pulling out his iPod and listening to Bruno Mars for a while.

The locker room door opened sooner than he’d expected, and he opened his eyes and turned off his iPod just in time for them to step through, smiling at each other about something while Kurt held the door open.

Rory looked fine.  Totally fine.  No bruise, no blood, no tears.

His eyebrows went up when he saw Finn.  “Hey, Finn.  Still here?”

“Yeah,” Finn said, sitting up.  “Kurt’s my ride home, so.”  He lifted his gaze to Kurt, who was already at his locker, pulling out his street clothes.  “I didn’t know where you went, so I just figured I’d hang around here a while.”

“Good choice.  You know how it worries me when you wander off,” Kurt said with a lifted eyebrow and an amused quirk to his mouth.  Finn stuck his tongue out at him.

Rory went to get his clothes, and Finn did a double-take when he saw that Rory must have been assigned Karofsky’s old locker.  Immediately Finn glanced to Kurt, but Kurt’s gaze only lingered at the space next to the locker for a second, miles and miles away, before he blinked and looked away.

“Rory,” Kurt said, his eyes trained on the jacket he was smoothing out on the hanger, “did you need a ride back to Brittany’s?”

“Yeah, we can totally take you,” Finn piped up, wanting to...God, to do _something_.  “That’s just like ten blocks away from us.”

Instead of the big smile Finn was hoping for, Rory shrank a bit.  “Ah.  No, you know, thanks, but, ah.  I think I’m just going to bum around a bit.  Go to the library or something.”

Finn blinked.  “The library’s closed, dude.  It’s after school hours.”

“Oh, yeah,” Rory said, scuffing at the floor with his foot.  “Well, I was thinking...maybe a hotel?”  Finn frowned, and Rory finally sighed.  “I heard the girls talking.  Santana’s coming to visit Brittany tonight.  I think I’d rather...not be there.”

And wow, that sucked--he didn’t know anything about Lima, where would he even go?  Finn glanced at Kurt, who glanced back, and something occurred to him.  It seemed to occur to Kurt at the same time, and Finn lifted his eyebrows, and Kurt looked at Rory, then back, and gave a tiny nod.

Grinning, Finn turned back to Rory.  “You want to come over to our house?”

Rory’s eyes lit up, and his mouth began to turn up, and _there_ the smile was.  “Really?”

“Of course,” Kurt said, pulling his undershirt over his head.  “Carole always makes enough for leftovers--Finn’s mom,” he added when Rory went blank.  “We’d be happy to have you.”

“Deadly,” Rory breathed, and when Finn cocked his head at him, he shook his head, laughing.  “Right, sorry.  Basically means ‘awesome.’”

“Oh,” Finn said, relaxing into a smile.  A little goofily, he tried, “Deadly.”

Rory positively _beamed_.  “Not bad, Hudson.”

Finn shuffled his stuff around in his backpack while they finished getting dressed, and Rory turned around in a circle for a second before seeming to realize something.  “Oh, think I forgot my phone in the classroom.”

Finn was only a little late remembering that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about that, and he casually threw out, “What classroom?”

Rory seemed to catch his slip, then shook his head.  “Just, uh, earlier today.  I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” Kurt said, his face cool and serene, and Rory shared a shy smile with him before disappearing out the door.

And Kurt’s face as he watched him go, the sadness and the understanding and the utter _pride_ there, was just too much to take.  Finn got to his feet and crossed the locker room to Kurt.  “Hey.”

Kurt gave him that amused little smile from earlier.  “Yes?”

In reply, Finn stepped forward and pulled him into a hug.

And Kurt seemed surprised, but just for a second, and he returned the hug as soon as that second passed, warm and easy and like home.  When Finn kept holding on, Kurt patted his back and said softly, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Finn said.  “Just...you’re really awesome, Kurt.  Like, _really_ awesome.”  Finally he pulled back, giving Kurt a squeeze before he did.  “Guess I just wasn’t sure if anyone’s told you that lately.”

Kurt’s face got all bright and misty like when they were dancing at the wedding, all the hollowness gone.  “Well, thank you.  You can be pretty awesome yourself.”  A knowing glint sparked in his eye.  “Though not necessarily when it comes to spying.”

Finn winced, looking guiltily off to the side.  “Crap.  You knew, huh?”

“I thought I heard something while we were in there, but some other things were more important,” Kurt said with a shrug.  “I figured if we weren’t getting mauled or paparazzi’d, it had to be a pretty benevolent spy.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”  Kurt gave his arm a fond squeeze before slipping out from between him and the locker to get his gym clothes put away.  “I meant what I said about Santana, too,” he said.  He slung his bag over his shoulder and looked Finn in the eye, the warmth still there but the smile gone.  “She doesn’t get to attack you anymore.  At least, not on my watch.”  He picked up Finn’s iPod from the bench and held it out to him.  “Promise.”

Finn took it from him, and he believed him.  “Thanks, bro.”

“You’re welcome, _bro_ ,” Kurt drawled with a little roll of the eyes, and Finn reached out to ruffle his hair, since it was all messed up anyway.  It didn’t stop Kurt from squeaking and batting at his hand, and that didn’t stop Finn from darting his other hand around to distract him by poking at his side, where he’d accidentally learned a few weeks ago Kurt was cripplingly ticklish.  The sound Kurt made was definitely not totally human, and Finn was laughing too much at that to even stop him when he grabbed a clean towel from the pile on the bench and started snapping it at him to keep him at bay, because oh, it was _on_.

By the time Rory came back in, Finn had snatched up a towel of his own and gotten into the most epic towel-snapping battle he’d lived through since that one time in middle school with Puck and Matt and Dave, and Kurt was maybe winning a little (but only because he’d gotten up on the bench to make up for the height difference, which was like, _totally_ unfair).

They only paused for a second as Rory blinked in the doorway.  Then they looked at each other, back at Rory, and smirked.  Finn stepped back, away from the dwindling pile of towels.  “Choose your weapon, dude.  You can be on my team.”

“Don’t listen to him, Rory,” Kurt said.  “Look at him, he clearly has a height advantage.”

“He’s _on a bench_!  And he’s like a dance ninja.  You haven’t seen him kick, dude.  Totally his advantage.”

“Choose your loyalties wisely,” Kurt warned.

Rory looked slowly between them, an utterly entertained grin creeping onto his face.  Then he walked up to the bench and picked up two towels, one in each hand, and before Finn could piece together what he thought was going to do with _two_ of them, he whipped them outward to snap both him and Kurt at the same time.  The squawk they let out was kind of creepily in stereo.

Beaming at both of them, Rory said, “Bring it on.”


End file.
